Prosecutors present new evidence about Trump’s election, accuse him of ‘resorting to crimes’

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump laid the groundwork for an attempt to overturn the 2020 election before losing, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to criminal conduct” in a failed attempt to stay in power, according to newly unsealed court record from prosecutors presenting new evidence from a landmark criminal case against the former president.

The filing by special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the fullest picture yet of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the election goes to trial. Despite months of congressional investigation and the indictment itself details Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, citing previously unknown accounts from Trump’s closest associates, intended to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who, having lost control of the White House, “used fraud” to target every stage of the electoral process.”

“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as saying to an adviser after being informed that his vice president, Mike Pence, had been taken to safety after a mob of violent Trump supporters breached the building US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to prevent the electoral votes from being counted.

“The details don’t matter,” Trump said when an aide told him that a lawyer filing legal challenges would not be able to prove false allegations in court, records show.

The contents of the message were made public amid objections Trump’s legal team made in the final month of a tight presidential race in which Democrats have sought to make Trump’s refusal to accept the election results four years ago a central argument in their claims that he is unfit for office.

The case came to airy only on Tuesday evening vice presidential debate when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, deplored the violence at the Capitol while his Republican opponent, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, refused to directly answer a question about whether Trump had lost the 2020 race.

The application was filed, initially sealed, after: Opinion of the Supreme Court granting former presidents broad immunity for official actions taken while in office, narrowing the scope of prosecution and eliminating the possibility of trial before next month’s election.

The purpose of the briefing is to convince U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the crimes alleged in the indictment were committed by Trump privately, not as president, and therefore may remain part of the case going forward. Chutkan allowed a redacted version to be made public even though Trump’s lawyers argued that unsealing it so close to the election is unfair.

While the trial’s prospects are uncertain, especially if Trump wins the presidency and the new attorney general seeks to dismiss the case, the record nonetheless serves as a roadmap for the testimony and evidence prosecutors were expected to obtain before the grand jury.

“Although the defendant was the sitting president at the time of the alleged conspiracies, his scheme was essentially private in nature,” Smith’s team wrote, adding: “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to criminal acts to remain in office.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the brief statement “based on lies” and “unconstitutional” and repeated oft-repeated allegations that Smith and Democrats “were intent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to stay in power.” Trump, in a separate post on his Truth Social platform, said the case would end with his “total victory.”

The filing alleges that Trump “set the groundwork” for throwing out the election results before the contest was over by telling advisers that if he had an early advantage, he would “declare victory before votes are counted and a winner is determined.”

The prosecutor’s office claims that immediately after the election, his advisers wanted to sow chaos in the counting of votes. In one case, a campaign worker, also described as a Trump co-conspirator, was told that voting results at a Michigan polling place appeared to be correct. It is alleged that the individual replied, “find a reason why it isn’t” and “give me the opportunity to file a lawsuit.”

Prosecutors also alleged that Trump made claims of fraud even though he knew they were false, describing how he told others that lawyer Sidney Powell’s claims about the accuracy of the election were “insane” and made references to the science fiction series “Star Trek.” Still, a few days later, he posted the lawsuit she was about to file on the platform then known as Twitter.

Demonstrating their apparent indifference to claims of voter fraud, prosecutors also cite an account by a White House staffer who, after the election, overheard Trump telling his wife, daughter and son-in-law on Marine One: “It doesn’t matter whether you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.

The files also include details of conversations between Trump and Pence, including a private lunch the two had on November 12, 2020, during which Pence “again mentioned the face-saving option” with Trump, telling him: “Don’t give up, but consider the process over.”

Days later, during another private lunch, Pence insisted that Trump accept the election results and run again in 2024.

“I don’t know, 2024 is a long way away,” Trump said in the filing.

Prosecutors say that on December 5, the defendant began to think about Congress’s role in the trial.

“For the first time, he mentioned to Pence the possibility of challenging the election results in the House of Representatives,” we read, citing the phone conversation.

But Trump “disrespected” Pence “in the same way that he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in select states – including those in his own party – who have publicly stated that he lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false,” prosecutors wrote.

The Pence Chronicle some of his interactions with Trumpand his final breakup with him, in a book released in 2022 titled “So Help Me God.” He was also ordered to do so appear before a grand jury is investigating Trump after courts rejected claims of executive privilege.

Prosecutors also say Trump used his Twitter account to further his illegal agenda, spreading false claims of voter fraud, attacking “those who tell the truth” about his election defeat and urging his supporters to travel to Washington for the ceremony awarding certificates on January 6, 2021.

They plan to use “forensic evidence” from Trump’s iPhone to gain insight into Trump’s actions after the attack on the Capitol.

Prosecutors say that of the more than 1,200 tweets Trump sent in the weeks detailed in the indictment, the vast majority were related to the 2020 election, including those that falsely claimed Pence could reject electors, even though the vice president told Trump he had no such option. power .

This “continuous stream of disinformation” in the weeks following the election culminated in his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6, 2021, in which Trump “used these lies to enrage and motivate a large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceedings,” prosecutors wrote.

His “personal desperation peaked” that morning when he was “only hours away from the certification proceedings that spelled the end,” prosecutors wrote.